As drones hit Putin where he lives, Washington vows no atoll too small to defend the Philippines against Chinese aggression

(Originally published May 4 in “What in the World“) Moscow is furious about two apparent drone attacks on the Kremlin, which it says were attempts by Ukraine on the life of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Ukraine denies responsibility for the attacks, but its policy has usually been either to deny or decline to comment on any alleged attacks inside Russia. The drone attacks on the Kremlin would be only the latest in a spate of forays across

the frontier. As Ukrainian forces wait for the evaporative power of the sun to free their Big Spring Counteroffensive from a muddy quagmire, they’ve also begun shelling targets across the border inside Russia’s Bryansk province.

Ukraine’s military says Russia has been launching drone attacks from Bryansk, in addition to, you know, Russia being the staging ground for the entire invasion of Ukraine. Even as it waits to strike back, Russian artillery continues to pound Ukrainian towns and cities, rapidly depleting Ukraine’s air-defense weapons.

But Washington has no interest in its weapons being used to kill Russians inside Russia. It’s fears of just such attacks inside Russia that have made Washington hesitant to give Kyiv longer-range weapons, including Atacms missiles, attack drones or F-16 fighter jets. According to top-secret documents leaked online, Pentagon worries that China would use any major attack inside Russia using Western weapons as a pretext to begin openly supplying Moscow with lethal weapons of its own.

Philippine President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., in Washington to cement the flip to his predecessor’s flop towards China, has won a U.S. commitment to modernize the Philippine military as part of an expanded the U.S.-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty. That 1951 agreement commits the two nations to come to the other’s defense in the event of foreign attack. The updated agreement broadens that commitment so that an armed attack anywhere the Pacific Ocean, “including anywhere in the South China Sea, on either of their public vessels, aircraft, or armed forces—which includes their Coast Guards—would invoke mutual defense commitments.”

Washington and Manila are already expanding military ties under their 2014 Enhanced Defense Security Cooperation Agreement, which gave U.S. forces access to five Philippine military bases. Earlier this year, they expanded that to nine bases.

Expanding the conditions for mutual defense to the entire Pacific Ocean raises the stakes between the U.S. and China. China has been sparring with the Philippines over several atolls in the South China Sea, most recently the Second Thomas Shoal. In 1999, Manila intentionally ran an older ship aground there to create a Philippine outpost. But Manila accused the Chinese coast guard in February of using a laser to prevent it from resupplying the outpost.

Israeli jets, meanwhile, pounded Palestinian militants in Gaza in response to rocket attacks sparked by the death in custody of an Islamic Jihad leader. Khader Adnan died yesterday after an 87-day hunger strike, sparking the Islamic Jihad and Hamas to launch at least 30 rockets from Gaza into Israel. Adnan was awaiting trial on charges of links to an outlawed group and incitement to violence.